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Life
Irish literary critic and anthologist; author of The Wild Geese (London 1938), contemporary of Joyce, to whom: ‘Griffin, I’m like Pontius Pilate. Quod scripsi, scripsi.’ (The Wild Geese, p.28; cited in Richard Ellmann, James Joyce, 1959; 1965 Edn., p.665).
| Griffin’s The Wild Geese (1938) is the source of the remarks about Joyce and George Moore attributed to J. P. Mahaffy, sometime Provost of Trinity College, Dublin [TCD] and mentor to Oscar Wilde and later Oliver St. John Gogarty - to this effect: “"Thank God, they have both cleared out of Dublin, but not before they had squirted stink like a pair of skunks on all the decent people with whom they came in contact. It’s an ill bird that fouls its own nest. James Joyce is a living argument in defence of my contention that it was a mistake to establish a separate university for the aborigines of this island - for the cornerboys who spit into the Liffey.” |
Source: The above quotation has been supplied by John McCourt and - at greater extent - by Paul Fagan on Facebook, 26.01.2017. Sam Slote makes the point that Mahaffey’s death in 1919 precludes his speaking of the author of Ulysses - though other correspondents point out that he may well have know of Joyce’s works and held an opinion of them all the same. |
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References
British Library (1957) holds Maria Edgeworth: Selection from Her Works by G. Griffin [Every Irishman’s Library] (Dublin: Talbot Press [1920]).
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